A brother and sister are at war with their local council after erecting an illegal fence through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
No, not the usual red-faced Farmer Giles type this time:
Urusa Ahmed and her brother Syed triggered a dispute in July 2021 when, without planning permission, they erected a fence around their two acre woodland plot that blocked public footpaths. The pair went on to illegally install large security gates and have erected several structures, including a large dwelling-type building with windows and a livestock shed, at the woodland site they own near Chesham, Bucks.
After missing Buckinghamshire Council's order to take the fence down by November 2022 , the case was upgraded to 'a criminal offence'.
But the dispute has boiled over in recent months as locals, furious at what they claim is council inaction over the saga, have taken the law into their own hands and smashed large sections of the fence down. The attacks came to a head on Tuesday when police were called in after two men armed with a sledgehammer were caught hacking down the fence.
You'd hope, would you not, Reader, that a Muslim couple breaking the law to keep people away from their secluded land would attract the attention of the security services. What are they hiding?
Urusa told MailOnline: 'Everybody has the right, it is a human right, to fence off your land, especially when people are trespassing.
'The land is like everywhere else! There is a sheep farm next to it, it has fences, the farm behind us has fences, opposite us has fences, next to us has fences.
'Now tell me one good reason why the council will not allow us to have fences? What's the difference between us and the rest of the people here?
'Why can't people have livestock in agricultural land, and if you have livestock, how can you expect us to protect them.
'There are men coming in with dogs, big dogs, deliberately trying to intimidate me.'
There are laws in this country and everyone is expected to abide by them. If you want to live in a different country, where the laws are different or non-existant, Heathrow's thataway!
2 comments:
Because the right of way trumps "your" land, it being in place before the land was parceled off for private sale back whenever (look up enclosure acts).
You can put a fence around your land, you just can't block public rights of way, that cross it, these presumably being identified on any deeds that must have been examined prior to purchase.
"...these presumably being identified on any deeds that must have been examined prior to purchase."
I wonder if they expected this to be yet another thing that wouldn't apply to them?
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